Adventures Guides

Explore GCFL From the Inside

Learn from Our Locals! We have. Have you skimmed through the monthly adventure guide stories but are ready to find your adventure? Perfect! We have updated this section to include an easier way to explore. Search by activity or season or one of our guides but don’t miss out. The stories are full of insider tips and hidden secrets. Know someone who likes to be “in the know”? Tell your friends to subscribe, too.

July 2016

ST. JOSEPH BAY. THE HEARTBEAT OF GULF COUNTY

St. Joseph Bay is alive, well and the center of Gulf County adventure. Ask any local guide and chances are they will tell you the Bay is their favorite place to explore.

Take Taft Taunton, Adventure Guide and owner of Liquid Addiction Charters, he loves to go offshore but he’s having fun in the Bay right now. His snapper trips are just as exciting as anything on the deep sea and he’s seeing trout, redfish and flounder galore!

Have you ever been kayak fishing? You can get on the same eye level as your fish. Talk about the same wavelength! Nervous that you would tip over? Not on Jeff Ross’ kayaks! “The kayaks I own are going to be stable and easy to get in and out of. Also, they are the kayaks with pedals and not paddles so your hands can do all the fishing work and your feet can move you around. It’s peaceful and close to nature.” Jeff, Adventure Guide and owner of Seagrass Charters, will gladly take you out and show you what he means!

We know some of you want to get out on the Bay but fishing may not be your thing (blasphemy!). If you just love being out on the water, try an eco-tour with Captain Dan Van Trese. He loves to get families out on the boat and show them all of the wildlife in the air, on land or in the water! Eagles, dolphins, sea turtles. You name it and you’ll likely see it!

All of these captains and more are part of our concierge program. Let our Welcome Center staff hook you up with the right adventure and the best guide for you and your family. Within a few questions, we can tell which of our Guides would be a good match. Check out this new service and you could also get a discount on your next adventure!

“Gulf County is special”, says Adventure Guide and owner of Daly’s Watersports, Ann Marie Daly. “There are so many watersports that are available to you – we are not just about scalloping – you can do something different every day.”

If you spend 30 seconds with Captain Bobby Guilford or Chef Mary Ann Conroy, you’ll swear you can smell the salt air and the grill lighting up. Both agree the best local ingredients come straight from the water!

“Seahorses are so interesting”, says Captain Gary, former owner of Seahorse Safaris. The completely orange ones or complete albinos are the odd guys that are fun. One year I may find a lot of seahorses or none.

“He and I dive together. I got him diving at 12 years old and now he loves scuba diving and snorkeling,” explains Adventure Guide and charter captain Bobby Guilford about his son Wade and their family tradition.

Did you play along on our GCFL Find Your Adventure scavenger hunt? So many of you did – THANK YOU! During our hunt we asked you 12 questions about adventures in Gulf County. On average, we had over 50 responses to every question!

Adventure Guide Brian says, “When you get over the fear factor of getting stung, the sense of order and wonder you get from a beehive is beyond belief. 40,000-60,000 bees working in unison. Their sense of smell is better than any hound dog.” (According to several sources, a bee’s olfactory sense is as much as 100 times more sensitive than a human’s nose.)

Have you tried the new search tool on the GCFL Adventure Guide? We asked GCFL Adventure Guide and owner of Coastal Joe Vacation Rentals, Megan Burkett, to play along with us to make sure it was an easy process.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are the two holidays where everyone really does try to get together. My family gets together for a weekend pre-Thanksgiving so that there isn’t a conflict with any of our husbands’ families.

“We are so family oriented. Crime-free,” says Denise, GCFL Adventure Guide and Property Manager at Cape San Blas Vacation Rentals. “If you are out on the Cape, it’s 20-30 minutes from town but it’s a beautiful drive.”

“In Gulf County we get lots of nesting Loggerhead turtles. On our 6-mile stretch, St. Joseph Peninsula, we average about 90 to 100 nests. This year we are almost up to 149 nests. It’s a record setting year!”

Take the lead from Trish, kayaking keeps her connected. “I take the kayak over to St. Vincent Island and spend the day. Or, just paddle around to the back of the Island – on the Apalachicola Bay side. It is gorgeous.”

“Because I am out on the water every day, I try not to take the beauty for granted. Even though I see dolphin, sharks, stingrays, fish leaping and shore birds almost everyday, I slow down and let folks see things for the first time. And sometimes, it’s a first for me, too.”

“Hands down our family loves to go to the Bay at St Joseph Peninsula State Park over and over again. It is certainly our family’s tradition. We don’t have a boat – which is unusual here but shows that you don’t need one!"

“We grew up vacationing here. We camped in Apalach and in 1968 we found St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. Right after that we built a house in Indian Pass. As soon as the house was built, we came down every weekend.”

Silvia, GCFL Adventure Guide and owner of Serenity Beach Rentals, can get behind that hashtag! “I like the thought of being ‘around the kitchen table’. It’s where all of the important discussion happens.

Well, I just took a sunset cruise out and saw 12 dolphins. The night before we saw 24. They feed at night so dusk is the best time to catch them. We have a tidal current that goes out of the Intracoastal and the dolphin like to follow that.

“Well, no two honey varieties are alike. Each has a unique flavor. But, unlike wine, I don’t make the honey”, says Brian, GCFL Adventure Guide and owner of local Smiley Honey. “The bees make it. We just bottle it.”

Jeri, Owner of Gulf Coast Vacation Rentals, talks about a favorite Guest Book Story. “We had a family coin the term “the dolphin parade.” They stayed in one of our homes out on Indian Pass called Palmetto Breeze.”

“I’m always taking in strays. We have a resident dolphin in the Bay. Wild dolphins live in pods. Even though this sounds bad, dolphins kick the big male dolphins that are ready for reproduction out of their existing pods to go join another pod. This behavior keeps the genes from bottlenecking.”

“Cape San Blas, and Gulf County in general, is a huge hot spot for turtles – especially loggerheads. We are the highest density-nesting beach in North Florida. The area we patrol, St. Joseph Peninsula, goes from the St Joseph Peninsula State Park boundary down to the Stump Hole.”

“The difference between staying in a house vs. renting a hotel room is that you’re going to cook there and eat there and hangout together. Kitchen and living space is always an important thing to look for. But, I don’t just mean inside the house. Many of our homes have just as much living and gathering space outside as they do inside.”

“I love Spring. And, we have kids so you can bet I’ll be on the ball field. Other than that, we are sitting on St. Joe Beach. Building sand castles and playing with our kids and their friends and their parents who are our friends.”

“Everyone is pleasantly surprised at how clear St. Joseph Bay is,” says Captain Gary. “We aren’t at the base of any river. It’s a saltwater Bay. Very little run off. Lots of cool, saltwater critters. The same creatures that are out in the Gulf are in our Bay.

Indian Pass Lagoon is a treasure says Adventure Guide Trish. A true eco-adventure. You need a flat bottom boat or a kayak because it’s so shallow. You will see all kinds of wildlife around the oyster beds.

Everyone loves to look for turtles says Debbie, Adventure Guide and Florida Master Naturalist. They are everywhere in the Bay. The “turtle holes” are in the deeper waters because it’s easier for them to escape predators.

Trish Petrie named her Inn after the turtles on the beach. Turtle season runs from May through October and during those months Turtle Patrol walks our beach every morning for signs of nests, she explains.

You can’t do it all in two days, says Lynn, Adventure Guide and General Manager of the Port Inn. If you have three days, you can spend one day at the beach, one day on the Bay and then one day in Port St. Joe.

Lynn, Adventure Guide and General Manager of the Port Inn is deep in thought. “What would I do with my extra day on a long weekend? Walk out into St. Joseph Bay – honestly, my family does it almost every day.”

When you finally decide to make Gulf County your year-after-year vacation destination, Megan Burkett, owner of Coastal Joe Vacation Rentals and GCFL Adventure Guide wants you to pick a great neighborhood.

Our adventure guides hiked and camped. They rode horses on the beach and kayaked almost every day on St. Joseph Bay (lucky dogs). Thankfully, they also told us their stories and shared their insider secrets.

We asked Adventure Guide and owner of Daly’s Watersports Ann Marie Daly her favorite thing to do in the water (besides scuba dive, of course!). Check out her answer and we’ll see you on your board soon.

Tupelo is a premier honey crop in this country, and the epicenter of tupelo honey is Gulf County, Florida, says Adventure Guide Brian, owner of Smiley Honey. So, of course it would make sense for locals and local chefs alike to incorporate the delicacy into as many dishes as possible. But, some of the combinations may surprise you!